How can we practice, think, and write contemporary circus beyond the human? What would it mean to create new modes of performance that would (re)valorize the animal in the ring? This exposition presents an exploration of the inventive, creative, and active dimensions of non-human animals in the context of circus.

The term 'literacy' encompasses reading and writing practices, each with distinct meanings and histories. Scholars define individuals as 'literate' or 'illiterate' based on these practices, a point not to be taken lightly. New literacies studies have expanded literacy from print to encompass all forms of meaning-making, leading to an expansion of associated terminology. In American higher education, despite the expanded meanings of terms like 'writing' and 'text,' the term 'research' remains dominated by written language, even within dedicated disciplines (Coiro et al.